I just brought a Hunter Fan model 21871 at Home Depot. I'm new to ceiling fans, but I do have a moderate amount of residential electric and electronic install knowledge. I picked this fan after looking online and at Lowe's and Home Depot because it was the only one that I liked the look of for a large room and with flush mount only 11.5" from ceiling to bottom of light.

Then I find out that the fan controls are "integrated" using an RF receiver for all functions. I read about people who had problems with the RF controls with the light coming on and off by itself and the fan changing speeds by itself. And Hunter told me you can't be turning the power on and off all the time at the light switch because it can damage the RF receiver.

I ordered a switch assembly from a similar Hunter Fan with pull chains and a hard wired reversing switch. As I suspected, the wire colors are the same for both the Hunter RF receiver and the basic switch they just sent me. Red, Pink, Gray, and Yellow to the fan motor. The basic switch has two capacitor assemblies, I think one of the two black boxes is a dual cap, a reversing switch, and a speed switch. It makes some sense to me. Someone wrote that one cap is for a startup winding to start the fan turning, and the other cap that has four wires on it is something to do with speed control?

I'm concerned about a few things. One: Am I right that I can use this basic switch instead of the RF receiver to convert this fan to hardwired? Two: Is there a in-wall fan control that is basically not "solid state" but more basic capacitor control? And Three: I wish someone could tell me for sure if the caps have to do with the speed control, or if the caps are just starting the fan turning, then the resistance in the three speed pull chain switch is what actually controls the speed? Is there two windings in most fans, the startup winding and the run winding? And then the run winding has different speeds *somehow*?

Ultimately, what I think I want is to be able to use a Leviton Decora X-10 remote switch to turn the fan on and off and some kind of wall mounted control to change speeds (non-remote control) and mount the reversing switch in the fan canopy. I want to use a Leviton X-10 Decora Dimmer to control incandescent loads/lamps in the fan. Unless anyone is up on CFL lamp dimming and knows a way to dim them with a Leviton Dimmer. I was looking at dimmable GU24 CFL's, but they don't seem to be perfected and widely available yet?

Thank you for any info.. I've been reading for days and I'm still quite confused about these issues. I really like this fan, except for the integrated controls...

L.

The colors may be the same but I doubt the specs are. Check the capacitor values.

The additional capacitors are there for speed control. Ceiling fans use PSC motors which require a start/run capacitor. Either you can vary the value of this capacitor to change speed, or add additional capacitors in series.

Any ceiling fan control that offers 3 or 4 distinct speeds is capacitor based.

OK, finally someone who seems to have it together to be able to play.

I'll get your feet wet and start here: Ceiling Fand wiring Diagrams

and:

CeilingFanParts.com Home

One of the first things you have to do, is find out what the configuration of the capacitor is. 3 wire is pretty easy to deal with.

In an integrated speed control, I don't know if the caps are in the speed control or in the fan. Suspect fan because they are big components.

An add on speed control generally wants you to set the unit to the fastest speed.

In order not to burn things up, you can use fuses or even a 60 W light bub in series with things.

So, you can write everything down for starters and try to identify the windings.

Decoding one of the schematics for you; 3 speed dual capacitor.

You can ignore the reversing switch for any initial tests. All it does is swap the polarity of one of the windings. Basically wired as a DPDT switch with the far ends crossed and the winding taken from the middle two terminals or one of the ends or vice versa. So, it's a simple 2 wire in with 2 wires out to an isolated winding. Just a lot of wires you don't need to concern yourself with initially.

The motor types is a PSC motor or a permanent split capacitor motor. The cap provides somewhat of a phase shift causing the motor to operate. The motors have crummy torque.

So, you have to identify the windings for starters and figure out which one gets the capacitor.

The speed control when a dual capacitor is used is just two caps with a one side common. Simple enough. What happens next is if the lowest value ca is used, you get the lowest speed. If the mid one is used, you get the middle speed.

Since capacitance adds when capacitors are in parallel, then the parallel combination is the highest value and thus the highest speed.

So, the switch that is used is/can be a simple A, B and A+B and off switched to line just like a 3-way lamp switch works, so again you have 2 terminals for the capacitor for this combination.

So you now have 2 windings (4 wires) and 2 wires for a capacitor (switch+dual cap) and power in.

When you try to cram all of this with the reversing switch, you have a mess. A fan reversing switch has tapped holes and this it's easier to install in the fan. When yo purchase the switch from the source given, it contains all the wires heat shrunk too.
The reversing switch really isn't rated to just move when you feel like it. The fan should be stopped and you'll have no problems.

Now, I suspect the other speed control switches may use different combinations of the capacitors to change speed. Remember that capacitors in series behave like 1/Ct=1/C1+1/C2... +1/Cn and caps in parallel behave like Ct = C1 + C2 +... Cn; opposite from resistors.

You'll have to do the leg work, but I can help if I can. You don't need the blades, the lamps or the reversing switch or even the speed switch to start.

I identify and add incrementally and you really should be fine.

Then you can tell all of us about it.

Deal?

KISS

PS: You need way too many wires for the capacitor thing/reverse to work.

KISS, not everything you posted is correct, and a lot of is correct for SOME fans but not ALL.

I REALLY advise against trying to convert non-pullchain RF fans to hard-wired. Basically, if you can't figure it out without asking questions, it's over your head. I've done it a couple times and found it was a headache not worth the time involved.

KISS and CFR: I haven't done much with this at the moment because I've been working a lot. KISS, I know the caps are built into the integrated RF receiver/fan controls, not the motor itself. CFR, I appreciate what you are saying and I am not taking your warning lightly. I still may opt to leave the integrated controls as they are and just wire the light in the fan differently. I appreciate your responses, and more will probably follow when there is more time. L.

I saw a Hunter fan model called the Talon where the reversing switch is actually concealed inside the light housing. To change the fan direction you have to remove the light glass to get to the switch. I thought about rewiring the fan I have here, putting the caps and switches inside the light housing. They don't take up much room. All the caps in the manual controls are 5uF. I'm going to see if I can determine what size the caps in the remote control RF receiver are.

So, if I connect the red, yellow, gray , and pink wires together with the manual switch parts and caps on this fan, what is the worst case scenerio? What blows up or is permanently damaged, or will it just not work right? L.

Wire it in series with a 150-300 watt bulb for testing purposes. If you screw around WITHOUT the remote electronics, the worst thing you can get is a bright light.

However if you screw around with the remote electronics, you will likely toast them.

And remember it needs at least one capacitor to operate.

If you can figure out which capacitor, or what value, I can give you an idea of what color wires go where.

Just a note. The lower reistance winding is the run winding. The other winding is wired in series with a capacitor.

AC1 -----RRRRR- (low r)------------------------AC2


AC1-----(a)SSSSSS(b)-------CCCCCCC-------------AC2

AC1 is tied together, AC2 is tied together. SSSS = Sart W, RRR = run wind, CCCC = cap

Line applied to AC1 & AC2

To reverse direction, flip a & b.

Highest capacitance highest speed. Capacitors in parallel add.

C too high - motor runs too fast and overheats or locks.
C too low, motor won't rotate, no torque

Again, KISS, this is not always the case. In the most common design, the two windings are similar or equal in resistance, and the direction of rotation is determined by which winding has the capacitor applied.

Probably one of the fancier systems out there. Lutron Maestro What Is Maestro >> Maestro Family

They seem to have the additude, if ti works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't.

Agreed, but reversing a winding will change the direction too. It might not be the native way, but it will work.

Here is some guy rambing about speeds and capacitors: Ceiling Fan Capacitor Solutions Conscious Junkyard.

Here is a nice little paper describing lots of things related toPSC motors. http://www.ece.wisc.edu/~lipo/2000pub/00-04.PDF

Namely how capacitors are selected and that the AUX winding has a higher resistance than the main winding. Now, I'll bet that you don't have the ability to do 4-terminal ohms measurements on your motor. I have a few meters that can. 100 micro ohms (0.0001 ohms resolution for resistances below 200 ohms using a 4-wire method.

That real-word example shows 8.69 ohms and 9.91 ohms for the windings in the article. Without a 4-wire technique, your barking up the wrong tree. In that example it differs by about 12%.

The motor theory says that the aux winding has to be higher because the LC circuit of the capacitor/inductor circuit raises the voltage potential required to get the same current in the main winding.

Furthermore, it makes a reference to pulsation if you don't tget the capacitance right and you generally have a small range to work with. So, too much and it's going to pulse noticeably. To little, it may not be able to start.

And yes, changing the winding that gets the capacitor can work to change the directions when the windings have similar characteristics. Reversing either winding will also reverse the direction when the windings are identical.